God's Miracle

A really great miracle happened in my church today. As in my previous post, I said to you guys that it was Palm Sunday and it was a special service. So when the procession was over, our normal church service began at sharp 9am where first the church pastor announce the song and the march right to the front of the altar followed by the church choir, and the Sunday School children. Everything seems to be normal until then something happened. The church LCD was not working. The LCD operator was puzzled as this was the first time he had ever faced something like it before. Many other church members tried to solve the problem but it was in vain. Without the LCD, there wouldn't be any songs on the LCD and we cant sing. Then, our church pastor took the mike as it was his worship today and told us that there was some technical glitches in the LCD and he prayed.

I believed that the whole church prayed with full of faith that the LCD wil work once again without any trouble. Halleluyah! Praise GOD! The LCD just worked immediately after he said AMEN!

The whole church was amazed of what God have done. I really feel good today.Worship led by Rev. Laurence, his wife and daughter

Palm Sunday

One of the most best or shall I say special services held in My church will be Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday is the festival celebrated by Christian one week before Easter commemorating that Jesus Christ cam to Jerusalem in a donkey and the people there welcomed him with palm leaves and with their clothes. My church celebrates special services much more special than other churches in Malaysia.

What do I mean by special??

Since I was a kid and since my parents were kids before, the tradition of going on a procession throught Buntong (around my church area) for about 1 km during Palm Sunday was a custom. We use to do that every year during Palm Sunday. We gather at church at about 7.30am and leave our church compound at about 7.45am. It is such a significant thing to do where I think none of the churches in Malaysia does it this way. One day earlier ( Saturday night) is where the Sunday School teachers and some church members gather to weave the cross. For your information, we weave cross form palm leaf. Its really something great. Yesterday (Saturday) about 40 people came to weave the cross. We managed to weave 1311 cross. About 200 of the crosses were given to our church outreach ministries.

Today(Sunday) about 416 of our church members took part in the procession. It was really cool. When we walk, we sing songs and the people in the neighbourhood looks at us and we give them the cross that we weaved earlier and the continue walking and singing although the sun is shining straight up our heads.

Usually there will be two people leading the procession carrying a big palm branch(i guess) each, then followed by my church pastors, the church choir, then Sunday School children and the the church members.

I really hope so that this tradition will never end as it is really great and I hope that other churches too have procession like this. There are some photos that I took along the way for those of you who might not just get the picture of what I am blogging about.

We begined with a prayer by Rev. Laurence
During the procession

Refreshments after the procession

One month of teaching.....

It seems it was just like yesterday that I began teaching but now its already so fast one month. I got the letter on the 2nd March and reported in school on the 3rd March. Wow time really flies. My contract of teaching is until 29th May because the teacher will be back after her 14 weeks course. Being a teacher is not so bad after all. Marking books, scolding students, teaching them new stuffs (which sometimes the level is too high) and many more. But the extra responsibilities is the one I hate. Extra responsibilities like coming for unnecessary meetings ( which are boring at the same time a waste of time), curricular activities which will begin next Wednesday and other patty-patty things which makes the job seems bad. But frankly speaking teaching is cool. Anyway hope so that I will not be filled with unessential workload.

One year back from Myanmar....

Last year, my family and I together with a few of my church member went to Myanmar for a mission trip. We were there to facilitate or more or less teach the Myanmar people how to have a Vacation Bible School (VBS). VBS for those who don't know, its actually a camp that is held every year during the holidays where we learn more and more about Christ. So the people in Myanmar are not exposed to this kind of things before. People like us from Malaysia went there to teach them how to conduct lessons and how to teach them. It was really a wonderful mission trip back there in Myanmar. We left on the 19th March and came back on the 31 March 2008. I had to miss so many lectures and i really suffered for the first few months back in INTI. But through God's grace, I managed to complete my South Australian Matriculation (SAM) program in INTI, and now I'm qualified to further my studies as what I wished for since I was a kid. GOD IS GREAT!!!

The Malaysia team that went to train the Myanmar teachers....
The whole team (Malaysia & Myanmar)